1940s Documentary Movies

212 movies found (page 1/8):

Why We Fight: Prelude to War(1942)

3.3/5 (with 29 votes)

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.

Directed by Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak - With Walter Huston, Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, Chiang Kai-shek, Richard Walther Darré, Otto Dietrich, Hans Frank, ...

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T-Men(1947)

| 1h 32min | Thriller, Crime

3.5/5 (with 33 votes)

Two U.S. Treasury ("T-men") agents go undercover in Detroit, and then Los Angeles, in an attempt to break a U.S. currency counterfeiting ring.

Directed by Anthony Mann - With Dennis O'Keefe, Mary Meade, Alfred Ryder, Art Smith, Charles McGraw, Herbert Heyes, ...

The Battle of Midway(1942)

| 18min | Documentary, War

2.9/5 (with 32 votes)

The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened.

Directed by John Ford - With Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell

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The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress(1944)

| 45min | Documentary, History, War

3.4/5 (with 16 votes)

This WW2 documentary centers on the crew of the American B-17 Flying Fortress Memphis Belle as it prepares to execute a strategic bombing raid on Nazi submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

Directed by William Wyler

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San Pietro(1945)

32min | War, Documentary

3.1/5 (with 28 votes)

This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans.

Directed by John Huston - With Mark W. Clark, John Huston

Nazi Concentration Camps(1945)

59min | Documentary

3.9/5 (with 24 votes)

Produced and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Hermann Göring and twenty other Nazi leaders, this film consists primarily of dead and surviving prisoners and of facilities used to kill and torture during the World War II.

Directed by George Stevens - With Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, Omar Bradley, Adolf Wahlmann, Josef Kramer

Listen to Britain(1942)

20min | Documentary

3.0/5 (with 25 votes)

A depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.

Directed by Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister - With Chesney Allen, Bud Flanagan, Myra Hess

Thunderbolt(1947)

44min | War, Documentary

3.1/5 (with 9 votes)

Documentary about the U.S. Air Force's P-47 Thunderbolt bomber's role in the Italian Campaign.

Directed by John Sturges, William Wyler - With James Stewart, Lloyd Bridges

Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia(1943)

1h 23min | Documentary, War

3.4/5 (with 12 votes)

The fifth film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War.

Directed by Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak - With Walter Huston, Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Hermann Göring, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, ...

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Victory Through Air Power(1943)

| 1h 5min | Animation, War, Documentary

2.8/5 (with 18 votes)

This is a unique film in Disney Production's history. This film is essentially a propaganda film selling Major Alexander de Seversky's theories about the practical uses of long range strategic bombing. Using a combination of animation humorously telling about the development of air warfare, the film switches to the Major illustrating his ideas could win the war for the allies.

Directed by Clyde Geronimi, H. C. Potter, James Algar, Jack Kinney - With Alexander P. de Seversky, Art Baker, Billy Mitchell

Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike(1943)

42min | War, Documentary

3.4/5 (with 10 votes)

The second film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the Nazis as its latest incarnation.

Directed by Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak

Tunisian Victory(1944)

1h 15min | Documentary, War

3.2/5 (with 7 votes)

Documentary made by the U.S. Army Signal Corps after the North African campaign.

Directed by Frank Capra, Hugh Stewart, John Huston - With Leo Genn, Burgess Meredith, Bernard Miles, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Erwin Rommel, ...

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The Tanks Are Coming(1941)

20min | Comedy

2.5/5 (with 2 votes)

Educational short about the status of battle tanks and tankist training in the American Army in pre-War 1941, featuring a comical Army trainee from the Bronx.

Directed by B. Reeves Eason - With George Tobias, Gig Young

A Diary for Timothy(1945)

40min | Documentary

3.3/5 (with 9 votes)

This brief documentary-style film presents the status of Great Britain near the end of the Second World War by means of a visual diary for a baby boy born in September, 1944. Narration explains to "Timothy" what his family, his neighbors, and his fellow citizens are going through as the war nears its end, and what problems may remain for new Englishmen like Timothy to solve.

Directed by Humphrey Jennings - With Myra Hess, John Gielgud

Paris Nineteen Hundred(1948)

1h 20min | Documentary

2.7/5 (with 5 votes)

Nicole Védrèss' chronicle of Paris from 1900 to 1914 is brought to life through the use of original material, all authentic, secured from more then 700 films belonging to public and private collections. A few of the celebrities of the time shown are Enrico Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt, and Maurice Chevalier.

Directed by Nicole Védrès

Fires Were Started(1943)

1h 10min | Drama, War

3.2/5 (with 16 votes)

British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II.

Directed by Humphrey Jennings

Why We Fight: The Battle of Britain(1943)

| 53min | Documentary, War

3.5/5 (with 7 votes)

The fourth of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of seven propaganda films, which made the case for fighting and winning the Second World War. It was released in 1943 and concentrated on the German bombardment of the United Kingdom in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion.

Directed by Frank Capra, Anthony Veiller

The Beginning or the End(1947)

| 1h 52min | Drama

3.4/5 (with 4 votes)

The research, development, and deployment of the first atomic bomb, as well as the bombing of Hiroshima, are detailed in this docudrama.

Directed by Norman Taurog - With Brian Donlevy, Audrey Totter, Chrispin Martin, Henry O'Neill, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, ...

The True Glory(1945)

| 1h 27min | Documentary

3.1/5 (with 6 votes)

A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen. It opens as the assembled allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain and covers all the major events of the war in Europe from the Normandy landings to the fall of Berlin.

Directed by Carol Reed, Garson Kanin - With Dwight D. Eisenhower, Peter Ustinov

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Why We Fight: Divide and Conquer(1943)

57min | Documentary, War

3.4/5 (with 7 votes)

The third film of Frank Capra's 'Why We Fight" propaganda film series, dealing with the Nazi conquest of Western Europe in 1940.

Directed by Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak, Lewis Seiler - With Rudolf Heß, Alfred Jodl, Winston Churchill, Fred Kelsey, Martin Kosleck, Syd Saylor, ...

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey(2017)

1h 15min | Documentary, History

3.9/5 (with 6 votes)

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

Directed by Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein, Alfred Hitchcock

People of the Po Valley(1947)

11min | Documentary

3.2/5 (with 20 votes)

A documentary short detailing the life of Italians living on the Po River in the 1940s.

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

Facing Your Danger(1946)

10min | Documentary, Adventure

2.9/5 (with 3 votes)

This Warner Bros. The Sports Parade series short chronicles the attempt by a group of men to navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon to Lake Mead. Led by Norman D. Nevills, nine men undertake a nineteen days trip in three specially built rowboats through the more than 200 rapids, some which run at 30 mph. Along the way, they see the remnants of previous expeditions. They also visit abandoned Pueblo Indian cave dwellings.

With Knox Manning

With the Marines at Tarawa(1944)

18min | Documentary, War

3.4/5 (with 4 votes)

Documentary short film depicting the harrowing battle between the U.S. Marines and the Japanese for control of the Pacific island of Tarawa.

Directed by Louis Hayward

San Demetrio London(1943)

1h 44min | Action, Drama, War

3.5/5 (with 4 votes)

British drama documentary from 1943, based on the true story of the 1940 rescue of the tanker MV San Demetrio by parts of her own crew after she had been set afire in the middle of the Atlantic by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer and then had been abandoned. When one of the lifeboats drifted back to the burning tanker the day after, and found that she still hadn't exploded, they decided to board her and put out the fires. Eventually, they managed to start the engine again and decided to try to reach Britain against all odds.

Directed by Charles Frend, Robert Hamer - With Walter Fitzgerald, Ralph Michael, Arthur Young, Gordon Jackson, Robert Beatty, James Donald, ...

Native Land(1942)

1h 29min | Drama, History

3.1/5 (with 6 votes)

By the start of World War II, Paul Robeson had given up his lucrative mainstream work to participate in more socially progressive film and stage productions. Robeson committed his support to Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz’s political semidocumentary Native Land. With Robeson’s narration and songs, this beautifully shot and edited film exposes violations of Americans’ civil liberties and is a call to action for exploited workers around the country. Scarcely shown since its debut, Native Land represents Robeson’s shift from narrative cinema to the leftist documentaries that would define the final chapter of his controversial film career.

Directed by Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand - With Paul Robeson, Fred Johnson, Robert Strauss

Van Gogh(1948)

20min | Documentary

3.3/5 (with 7 votes)

Oscar Winning 1948 short film by Alain Resnais, not to be confused with either the Short 1966 TV doc or the 1991 feature film by Maurice Pialat, both of which shared the same name.

Directed by Alain Resnais - With Claude Dauphin

Of Pups and Puzzles(1941)

10min | Documentary

2.8/5 (with 2 votes)

This short film shows how the war department utilizes a Ph.D., a chimp, and three dogs to help design aptitude tests for men applying for work.

Directed by George Sidney - With Eddy Chandler

Kokoda Front Line!(1942)

9min

2.6/5 (with 9 votes)

This iconic and Academy Award-winning newsreel shot by Damien Parer contains some of the most recognised images of Australian troops in the Second World War.

Directed by Ken G. Hall

The Private Life of a Cat(1946)

22min | Documentary, Drama

3.5/5 (with 16 votes)

An intimate study of the life of a domestic cat, taking place over a period of months as she gives birth to a litter of kittens and cares for them as they grow.

Directed by Maya Deren, Alexandr Hackenschmied